Oliver's lure never fades

VIOLENT, brooding and deadly, the late Oliver Reed played the brutish Bill Sikes to perfection in the 1968 film version of Lionel Bart's Oliver!

Consequently, Portobello-born jewellery shop manager Ali Macdougall, who tackles the same role in Musselburgh Amateur Musical Society's (MAMA) production of the feel-good musical, knows he has a tough act to follow, literally.

"Certainly Oliver Reed made the part his own," says the 24-year-old, taking a break from one of the company's last rehearsals before opening night at the Brunton Theatre, on Monday.

"The difference between Reed and myself is that I am a lot smaller in presence and height, so I'm relying on my delivery and facial expressions to create a more sinister character perhaps, as opposed to just being a big burly bully."

Behind Macdougall, Inver-esk Parish Church Hall is a den of activity. In a corner, one member of the 62-strong cast sits engrossed in a script.

Others, under the baton of musical director Kerry-Ann Rae, deliver a rousing, foot-tapping rendition of Consider Yourself. But then the score of Oliver! has always been as big an audience draw as the Dickens' tale on which the action is loosely based.

Just about every number is a sing along classic, from Food Glorious Food to Who Will Buy?, You've Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two to I'd Do Anything and Oom-Pah-Pah to the rueful Reviewing The Situation.

"The music carries the show. Every song is a potential show-stopper. There are some lovely harmonies and not a single weak number in the entire score," agrees Rae.

"Every song actually adds to the story. They drive the plot forward and as such, many are very emotional. The challenge for the actors is being able to capture that emotion while singing."

It goes without saying that Oliver! is the musical version of Oliver Twist, the tale of a run-away workhouse boy who falls under the influence of the Artful Dodger and his mentor, the arch-criminal Fagin who runs a gang of juvenile pickpockets.

When Oliver! premiered on London's West End at the New Theatre, on June 30, 1960, it launched a number of child actors on the road to success, including Davy Jones, later with The Monkees; Phil Collins, drummer of Genesis; and Tony 'Baldrick' Robinson.

However, if Oliver Reed became synonymous with the role of Sikes, it is the name Ron Moody that is most likely to spring to mind when Oliver! is mentioned.

Over three decades the veteran actor played the pivotal part of Fagin in numerous productions. He created the role in the original production before touring to the USA, finally reaching Broadway in 1963. More than 20 years later he returned to the part, and to Broadway, for a short-lived revival in 1984.

MAMA's Fagin, too, is reprising the role, and long-time company member Bob Crawford promises that his portrayal this time around will be very different to the last.

"When I played the role 11 years ago, the director wanted Fagin to be more like Shylock, to emphasis the really nasty side of the character.

"I'm not playing him too heavily this time because, although he has some scenes which are quite dramatic, the next minute he's singing little ditties. I don't see him as the absolute villain – that's Bill Sikes."

The last West End production of Oliver! in 1994, saw Cameron Macintosh revitalise the show with additional music and lyrics by Bart and with Jonathan Pryce as Fagin. Again, a host of youngsters who are now household names got their big breaks, including Jon Lee, later a member of S Club 7, and Tom Fletcher, one third of McFly.

Both played the title role which, in the MAMA production, falls to ten-year-old Stoneyhill Primary School pupil, Peter McNeill, who can't wait to sing Where Is Love when the curtain rises next week.

"I watched the film and thought it was good and thought I want to do that," he says. "Although there was one scene where Oliver got covered in mud and at that point I thought maybe I don't want to be Oliver after all."

Helping McNeill steal the limelight from the adult actors in the cast is another ten-year-old, Benjamin Kenderdine, who will make his stage debut as the light-fingered street urchin, the Artful Dodger.

Kenderdine, a pupil at The Compass School in Haddington, smiles, "I'm really looking forward to it. The adult cast have been really friendly and looked after me.

"I knew of the show before, because whenever I would ask my mum for extra cereal at breakfast she would say, 'More?' just like Mr Bumble."

Director Eleanor Brown believes that the ongoing popularity of Oliver! is simple.

"The company had a choice of three shows and the attraction of doing Oliver! was simply that it has everything," she explains. "It has a super story, lots of children, music, and quite a bit of darkness as well."

Perhaps it is a testament to the timeless nature of Bart's masterpiece that Oliver! is currently the focus of the BBC's latest search-for-a-star show.

I'd Do Anything sees Andrew Lloyd Webber auditioning hopefuls for the roles of Oliver and Nancy every Saturday, with the winners set to make their West End stage debuts in the latest revival of the show at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, in September.

"Being chosen to play Nancy has been a fantastic oppor-tunity for me because there are so many different dimensions to her character," says 33-year-old physiotherapist Elaine Graham.

"That's the great thing about amateur dramatics, I get to play the role without having to go through weeks and weeks of tortuous public auditions."

So does she have any words of advice for her TV counterparts?

"Capture her vulnerability, that's a side of her that often gets lost."

• Oliver!, Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh, Monday-Saturday, 7.30pm (Saturday matinee 2pm) £9-£10, 0131-665 2240